Shared channel subsystem has a self timed interface using a received clock signal to individually phase align bits received from a parallel bus

ABSTRACT

A shared channel subsystem has an input-output element for coupling each of a plurality of input-output controllers to each of a plurality of processor nodes by means of a self-timed interface (STI) in which a clock signal clocks bit serial data onto a parallel, electrically conductive bus and the clock signal is transmitted on a separate line of the bus. The received data on each line of the bus is individually phase aligned with the clock signal, providing a cost effective, modular input/output element.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates to an improved method and apparatus for transmitting digital data at high speeds via a parallel data bus, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus that provides a cost effective modular, high bandwidth input/output element that can serve economically a few channels and is modularly scalable to serve several hundred channels.

2. Related Applications

The present United States patent application is related to the following co-pending United States patent applications incorporated herein by reference:

Application Ser. No. 08/262,087, filed Jun. 17, 1994, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,487,095, entitled "Digital Phase Locked Loop with Improved Edge Detector," and assigned to the assignee of this application.

Application Ser. No. 08/261,515, filed Jun. 17, 1994, still pending, entitled "Self-Timed Interface," and assigned to the assignee of this application.

Application Ser. No. 08/261,522, filed Jun. 17, 1994, still pending, entitled "Multiple Processor Link," and assigned to the assignee of this application.

Application Ser. No. 08/261,561, filed Jun. 17, 1994, still pending, entitled "Enhanced Input-Output Element," and assigned to the assignee of this application.

Application Ser. No. 08/261,603, filed Jun. 17, 1994, still pending, entitled "Massively Parallel System," and assigned to the assignee of this application.

Application Ser. No. 08/261,523, filed Jun. 17, 1994, still pending, entitled "Attached Storage Media Link," and assigned to the assignee of this application.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART

As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, such factors as noise and loading limit the useful length of parallel busses operating at high data rates. In the prior art, the length of the bus must be taken into account in the system design and the bus length must be precisely as specified. Manufacturing tolerances associated with physical communication link (chips, cables, cord wiring, connectors, etc.) and temperature and variations in power supply voltage also limit the data rates on prior art busses comprised of parallel conductors. Further, many prior art computer systems transfer data synchronously with respect to a processor clock, so that a change in processor clock rate may require a redesign of the data transfer bus.

General purpose computer systems are comprised of central processing element(s), local memory (storage) elements and input/output (I/O) elements. Of these, the processing and storage elements have benefitted directly from the continuous advances being made in circuit density, enabling more and more processing capability/storage per chip.

The I/O element, gated by other physical constraints, has not been able to track the performance gains of the processing/storage elements. Hence, the I/O element can limit the overall computer systems' performance in many applications. Further aggravating this problem are new system applications, such as client/server, that require large numbers of I/O, and multimedia that demand higher performance I/O elements. It also follows that for many applications, the smaller and smaller, yet faster, central processor elements (benefitting from circuit technology density advances) require more and more I/O capability to satisfy the increased demand for data (to be moved and/or to be processed). These trends can be expected to persist. Given that a primary role of a computer system I/O element is that of a transformer of bus speed (as well as of protocol and technology) between increasingly faster processor/storage elements and the slower, relatively unchanging speed of the attached I/O controllers, plus increases in required connectivity will continue to drive the need for improved efficiency and performance of the I/O element.

The I/O element often takes the form, especially on the most powerful systems, of a large multiplexer feeding and being fed by a network of more numerous and slower buses/links (becoming more numerous and slower the further away from the host they are in the network).

A current typical large computer system I/O element can require more than 100 channel functions as the middle stage/level in a hierarchically arranged busing network (between the highest level internal bus (fastest) and the more numerous and slower I/O controllers). The channel functions are packaged as part of the computer system and provide the interfaces to communicate, over distance (km), with the I/O controllers.

The large number of channel functions required, the channel transceiver design, the power required for distance and the connectors needed for external cable attachment all impede I/O element miniaturization.

In the prior art system, efforts are made in the I/O element design to avoid requiring excessive host signal pins (obtainable only through exotic/expensive packaging). Toward that end, minimum width data path/bus connections are employed between the channels and higher levels (internal buses) of the network. Even so, the number of signal pins, internal cables, connectors and circuit board complexity remains high.

The narrow buses are cycled faster than wider buses to achieve equivalent data transmission performance; however, this restricts maximum bus (cable) length. This trade-off between cable distance/net length and cycle time is typical with most prior art bus/link technologies and is a significant packaging constraint. Optimal packaging for cost and extendibility is compromised by requiring all channels to be within a limited (e.g., 3 meters) cable distance from the processor storage/control elements. This is especially troublesome in the more powerful systems where the system package must accommodate 100 or more channels.

Then too, prior art systems operate the numerous channels/buses synchronously to the host system clock to avoid inflating host circuit count via additional synchronizing buffers and logic. The channels/buses operating cycle time ranges are slower than the host, thus clock multiplier logic is used to provide clocks that are a multiple of the host clock cycle. This adds complexity to the design (as different multipliers can be required when host cycle times change) to remain within channel/bus operating ranges.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The primary object of this invention is the provision of means to enable multiple processing nodes to share channel elements.

Another object of this invention is the provision of a cost effective bus data transfer system that can operate at high data transfer rates without tight control of the bus length, and without system clock constraints; a system in which the maximum bus length is limited only by the attenuation loss in the bus.

Another object of the invention is the provision of a general purpose, low cost, high performance, point to point data communication link where the width and speed of the interface can easily be modified to tailor it to specific bandwidth requirements and to specific implementation technologies, including VLSI technologies.

Briefly, this invention contemplates the provision of an input-output element for coupling each of a plurality of input-output controllers to each of a plurality of processor nodes by means of a self-timed interface (STI) in which a clock signal clocks bit serial data onto a parallel, electrically conductive bus and the clock signal is transmitted on a separate line of the bus. The received data on each line of the bus is individually phase aligned with the clock signal.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing and other objects, aspects and advantages will be better understood from the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the invention with reference to the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is an overview block diagram illustrating the application of a self-timed interface, in accordance with the teachings of this invention, to data communication among computer chips.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating one embodiment of a transmitter serializer for implementing a self-timed interface in accordance with this invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating byte synchronization in accordance with the invention.

FIG. 4 illustrates phase alignment and sampling logic in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention.

FIGS. 5A and 5B are block diagrams comparing the number of I/O elements and channel elements required when implementing the invention (FIG. 5B) as compared with a system that does not implement the invention (FIG. 5A).

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a plurality of control units each interconnected to a processing node.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram similar to FIG. 6 showing a system implemented via a self timed interface switch where the input-output elements are shared among the processing nodes.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION

Referring now to FIG. 1 of the drawings, it illustrates one embodiment in which a self-timed interface in accordance with the teachings of this invention can be used. This exemplary embodiment of the self-timed interface provides data communications between two microprocessor chips, labeled here as Chip A and Chip B. However, as will be apparent to those skilled in the art, the self-timed interface of this invention is applicable to provide data transfer between a wide variety of components or nodes.

Chip A has a transmit port labeled 12A and Chip B has a transmit port labeled 12B. Similarly, Chips A and B have receive ports labeled 14A and 14B, respectively. The ports are connected by two self-timed interface busses 16; one for each transmission direction. In this exemplary embodiment of the invention, each bus 16 is one byte wide, and comprised of nine electrical conductors; eight conductors for data and one conductor for a clock signal.

Each transmit port (12A and 12B) includes a transmit logical macro 18 that provides a logical interface between the host logic and the self-timed interface link 16. Sync buffers 22 provide an interface between the host clock and the self-timed interface clock. This allows the self-timed interface link to run at a predetermined cycle time that is independent of the host clock, making the self-timed interface link independent of the host. An outbound physical macro 24 serializes a word-wide data flow into a byte-wide data flow that is transmitted along with the clock on the self-timed interface link 16.

Each receive port (i.e., 14A and 14B) includes an inbound physical macro 26 that first dynamically aligns each data bit with the self-timed interface clock signal. It aligns any bits with skew up to three bit cells and deserializes the bytes into words. A receive logical macro 28 provides an interface between the self-timed interface receiver logic and the host logic and generates link acknowledge signals and link reject signals, which are coupled by internal links 33 and transmitted back to the transmitting port via an outbound self-timed interface link 16. In order to compensate for variations in electrical path delay, the phase of the incoming data is adjusted, or self-timed. Each bit (line) is individually phase aligned to the transmitted reference clock and further aligned to compensate, within embodiment, for up to three bit cells of skew between any two data lines. The self-timing operation has three parts. The first is to acquire bit synchronization; the second is byte/word alignment; and the third is maintaining synchronization.

In acquiring bit synchronization, the link takes itself from a completely untimed state into synchronous operation. Any previous condition on the STI interface or logic is disregarded with a complete logic reset. The bit synchronization process can be rapidly established, for example on the order of 200 microseconds. The phase of the incoming data is manipulated on a per line basis until the data valid window or bit interval is located. This is accomplished using a phase detector that locates an average edge position on the incoming data relative to the local clock. Using two phase detectors one can locate two consecutive edges on data and these two consecutive edges define the bit interval or data valid window. The data to be sampled by the local clock is the phase of the data located halfway between the two edges of the data.

Byte alignment takes place by manipulating the serial data stream in whole bit times to properly adjust the byte position relative to a deserializer output. Word alignment takes place next by manipulating the deserializer data four bit intervals a time to ensure proper word synchronization on the STI interface. A timing sequence allows proper bit, byte and word synchronization.

Synchronization maintenance occurs as part of the link operation in response to temperature and power supply variations.

Referring now to FIG. 2, which illustrates one embodiment of a transmit serializer for a bit serial byte parallel interface used in the practice of the invention. Here a four byte wide data register 23 receives parallel inputs 25 (bytes 0, 1, 2 and 3 inputs shown here) and multiplexes them to a one byte wide self-timed interface. Data is clocked from the register 23 by a divide by two of the self-timed interface clock on line 27. Bit zero from bytes 0, 1, 2 and 3 are serialized and transmitted on link 0 of the self-timed interface, shown here. Bit 1 from bytes 0, 1, 2 and 3 will be transmitted on link 1 (not shown) and so on.

To minimize the bandwidth requirements of the communication media the STI clock is one half the frequency of the transmitted data (baud) rate, i.e., a 75 Mhz clock will be used for a 150 Mbit/S data rate. The clock will be generated from an STI oscillator source, this is done to decouple the system or host clock from the STI link. The data will be transmitted with both edges of the clock.

Referring now to FIG. 3, assuming a bit synchronization process as described in connection with co-pending U.S. patent application, application Ser. No. 08/261,515, filed Jun. 17, 1994, entilted "Self-Timed interface," and assigned to the assignee of this application, byte synchronization starts by coupling the phase aligned data (now 2 bits wide) into a shift register 33 whose outputs are coupled to multiplexer 35. The control inputs to the multiplexer will be used to deskew the particular data line from the other data lines by whole bit times. The deserializer data output for a particular data line is monitored for the expected timing pattern (X 0 1 0 where X is a don't care) to determine the proper order of the received data. If at any time a zero is detected in the bit 3 position the multiplexer is incremented thus moving the byte boundary by one bit time. This process is repeated until the proper byte boundary is located. The multiplexer control wraps around from a binary 3 to a binary 0 in case the correct position was incorrectly passed through the previous time. This function allows synchronization of data lines skewed by more than an entire bit time.

Referring now to FIG. 4, in this embodiment of the invention, the clock rate is the same as the data rate. The data edges that define a data window are each detected independently of the other and the data is sampled at the midpoint between the edges when the edges have been aligned with the clock. The position of the edges of incrementally separated phases of the input data stream are successively compared to the position of the rising and falling edges of the clock in order to locate the edges of the data stream with respect to both edges of the clock (e.g., the rising and falling edges).

The data phase pairs are generated in this specific embodiment of the invention by three incrementally selectable delay elements 80, 82, and 84. For example, the elements 80 and 82 provide delays, respectively, in 1/10th and 1/5th bit time increments and element 84 provides fine increments on the order of 1/20th of a bit time. The fine delay element 84 is separated into three groups to provide early edge detection, system data detection, and late edge detection. An early guard band selector 86 successively selects one phase of the data stream to provide an "early" phase of the incrementally separated phases--one for the rising edge and one for the falling edge. Similarly, a late guard band selector 90 successively selects one phase of the data stream to provide a "late" phase of the incremental phases--again one for the rising edge and one for the falling edge. A selector 88 selects incremental phases for the mid-cell system data position.

A selected data phase is coupled as an input to master-slave RES-FES latch pairs 92, 94, and 96. The edge data samples are clocked into the RES latches and the falling edge data samples are clocked into the FES latches. The outputs of the RES-FES latch pair 92 are connected to an early edge detector 98. Similarly, the outputs of the RES-FES latch pair 96 are coupled to a late edge detector 100. The RES latch of pair 94 is coupled to the early edge detector 98 and the FES latch of pair 94 is coupled to the late edge detector 100.

Each edge detector (98 and 100) outputs a "lead", a "lag" or a "do nothing" output which indicates the location of a data edge with respect to the reference clock edge location. The output of each edge detector is coupled via a suitable filter 102 (i.e., a random walk filter), back to its respective selector 86 and selector 90, respectively. The selectors shift the phase of the data coupled to the RES-FES latches in the direction indicated, or if "do nothing" is indicated, the phase of the data at that edge is not shifted.

Data control logic 104 controls the system data output by selecting the phase of the data that is halfway between the two data edges when the data edges are aligned with the reference clock. A phase of the data (Data 1 and Data 2) is outputted at each reference clock edge.

In operation of a specific embodiment, at power on the logic will automatically begin the bit synchronization process. A 16 microsecond (final value TBD) timer is started, the bulk delays are reset to their minimum delay and a 16 bit counter running off the divided down clock is started. The edge detect circuitry will sample the incoming data with the received reference clock. The edge detector will output a "lead", a "lag" or a "do nothing" signal that indicates the data edge location relative to the reference clock. This signal is filtered by a Random Walk Filter (RWF) and fed-back to the selectors of their respective RES and FES circuits. The selectors shift the phase of the data into the RES and FES as indicated by the edge detector. Each edge detector operates independently of the other. Each will locate the transitions on data relative to the received (ref) clock by manipulating the incoming phase of the data into the edge detector as described above. The phase of the system data is controlled by the data control logic which selects the phase of the data halfway between the two edge detectors. In parallel with the bit synchronization process, the order of bits out of the deserializer are manipulated to the correct order (see byte/word synchronization below). When the 16 microsecond timer trips the algorithm resets a deserializer error latch and restarts the 16 microsecond counter. The deserializer output is compared against the expected timing pattern (X 0 1 0 where X is a don't care). A single miscompare on any cycle during the next 16 microseconds will set the deserializer error latch. When the 16 microsecond counter trips again the algorithm checks the addresses of the EGB, LGB, and data selectors, deserializer error latch. In order for a bit to end the initial bit synchronization search state, the deserializer output latch must have remained reset AND the all selectors must be properly centered in their tracking range (centering ensures that adjustments can be made to allow for the tracking of temp. and power supply variations after the initial bit synchronization process). If both conditions are not met then the algorithm adds a bulk delay element, resets the 16 microsecond counter and the search process begins once again. Each and every bit (data line) on the STI interface undergoes this process in parallel. Once an individual data line is determined to meet the initial bit synchronization criteria described above it is degated while the other lines continue to be adjusted. The bit synchronization process is complete once all bits are adjusted and meet the search criteria. The logic will not exit the bit synchronization mode until the 16 bit counter trips.

Finally word alignment takes place. Word alignment is established by manipulating the deserializer output bus four bits at a time until word synchronization is established. Note that the first register is shifted by four bit times relative to the second register. Four bit times is the maximum any data bit can be skewed relative to another data bit (3 bit times on link+1 bit time from phase alignment section).

During normal operation the physical macro will continuously monitor the incoming data to ensure that the optimum clock sampling relationship exists. Small updates will be made to track temperature, power supply and data jitter. These updates will be seamless and transparent to the host logic. Approximately 1/2 a bit time of delay will be needed to compensate for temperature and power supply variations to maintain proper synchronization. This added delay is in the fine delay elements section. There is also circuitry to monitor the position of the guard bands relative to the allowable range of operation. If a guard band reaches the end of its range, two cases exists: 1) a new bulk delay element is added and the fine delay elements are adjusted accordingly. Note this can cause sampling errors in the data. The circuitry that makes these on the fly bulk adjustments can be inhibited so no on the fly bulk delay adjustments are made during normal operation. The second case exists when one of the guard bands reaches the end of its range and the on the fly bulk delay adjustment is inhibited, the physical macro will signal the logical STI macro that a bit synchronization is required soon. The link should finish the immediate work and force the link into timing mode.

Referring now to FIG. 5A, it shows a system configuration with a number of processing nodes 50, sub-elements 52, a fiber optic switch 54 and a control unit 56. Here there are a plurality of fiber optic links 60 that connect the sub-elements 52 to the switch 54. Switch 54 is connected to a control unit 56.

FIG. 5B shows the system of FIG. 5A implemented with self-timed interface links 59 that connect respectively eight processing nodes 50 to a self-timed interface switch 57. Only four fiber optic links 60 are required to connect the switches 57 universally to the control unit 56 via the sub-element 52.

Referring now to FIG. 6, it shows a basically conventional system configuration that allows a plurality of processing nodes 60 to each access any one of a plurality of control units (CUs) 62. Here an STI link 64 connects respectively a processing node 60 to an input-output sub-element at 66 which may may be integral with or remote from the processing node to which it is connected. Each sub-element 66 provides, for example, up to 32 channel functions. A pair of fiber-optic links 68 connects each sub-element 66 to a commerically available fiber-optic switch 69 (such as an ESCON DIRECTOR). Fiber-optic links 70, in turn couple each of the switches 69 to each of the control units 62. In this configuration, fiber-optic switches 69 provide the switching capability that allows each of the processing nodes 60 to access each of the control units 62. This same level of connectivity can be achieved with improved hardware efficiency by using self-timed interface switches as shown in FIG. 7.

Referring now to FIG. 7, here STI links 74 respectively couple each processing node 60 to both STI switches 72 and 73. The switches 72 and 73 are preferably non-blocking packet switches. STI links 76 in turn couple switches 72 and 73 to each of the four sub-elements 66. Fiber optic links 78 couple the sub-elements 66 to each of the control units 62. This greatly reduces hardware cost, and allows the processing nodes to access far more channels and CUs than before. Note that any processing node can communicate to any channel through the STI switch and the enhanced I/O sub-elements as more fully explained in application Ser. No. 08/261,515, still pending. The traditional approach restricted the number of channels an individual processing node could access. In an enhanced I/O configuration, the processing node can communicate to any of the channels directly attached to the particular enhanced I/O element the processing node is connected to. In the switched STI environment, the processing node can access any of the channels or any of the CUs attached to any of the channels.

While the invention has been described in terms of a single preferred embodiment, those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention can be practiced with modification within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. 

Having thus described our invention, what we claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is as follows:
 1. An input-output element for coupling an input-output control unit to a plurality of processor nodes, comprising in combination:a processor node; a non-blocking self-timed interface packet switch; an input-output channel sub-element; an input-output control unit; a channel connecting the input-output control unit to the input-output channel sub-element; a first self-timed interface connecting said input-output sub-element to said self-timed interface non-blocking packet switch; a second self-timed interface connecting said self-timed interface switch to each of said plurality of processor nodes; each said first and said second self-timed interfaces including a transmitting node for transmitting a digital data and a clock signal and a receiving node for receiving said digital data and said clock signal, said transmitting node connected to said receiving node by a parallel data bus to individual lines of which a digital data stream is coupled by said clock signal at said transmitting node, said parallel data bus including a separate line for transmitting said clock signal, and said receiving node including means to phase align a digital data stream on each of said lines separately with respect to said clock signal.
 2. An input-output element for coupling an input-output control unit to each of a plurality of processor nodes, as in claim 1 wherein there are a plurality of input-output channel sub-elements and a plurality of input-output control units.
 3. An input-output element for coupling an input-output control unit to each of a plurality of processor nodes, as in claim 1 wherein each of said channel sub-elements is shared with each of said processing nodes.
 4. An input-output element for coupling an input-output control unit to each of a plurality of processor nodes, as in claim 2 wherein each of said channel sub-elements is shared with each of said processing nodes.
 5. An input-output element for coupling an input-output control unit to each of a plurality of processor nodes, as in claim 1 wherein each of said processing nodes can perform an input-output operation through each of said input-output sub-elements.
 6. An input-output element for coupling an input-output control unit to each of a plurality of processor nodes, as in claim 3 wherein each of said processing nodes can perform an input-output operation through each of said input-output sub-elements.
 7. An input-output element for coupling an input-output control unit to each of a plurality of processor nodes, as in claim 4 wherein each of said processing nodes can perform an input-output operation through each of said input-output sub-elements. 